women's trauma is not a game
Content warning: the following piece contains references to domestic abuse, sexual assault and rape.
I am tired of women being played as political pawns in some nightmarish game.
A game where you only support survivors of sexual assault when it suits your agenda or set of beliefs.
It has been an exhausting eighteen months.
A man and a woman have a huge argument in their flat. The words "Get off me'' are screamed. A neighbour calls the police. It turns out it's one of the Conservative candidates for prime minister Boris Johnson and his then girlfriend Carrie Symonds. The concerned neighbour then turns into a Labour political activist determined to ruin the career of Boris. Over half of all women who are killed in the UK die by the hands of their partners or ex partners.
A group of nine women go to the police after they all experienced various levels of sexual assault. They didn't go to the police for years as they didn't want to jeopardize their work during an important time. The man accused is Alex Salmond. They immediately turn into political activists determined to ruin Salmond's career and the case for independence in Scotland. All of these women worked for the SNP during the independence referendum. In their own words: "Our job involved protecting the first minister and his reputation."
A number of women come forward saying they've experienced sexual harassment over a number of years when working for a US senator.The accused turns out to be Joe Biden, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. One woman in particular is vocal about her accusations and is immediately framed as being a Russian agent trying to ruin Biden's chances at the presidency and ensure Trump stays in power. Anyone who believes her is said to only do so because they wanted his rival, Bernie Sanders, to be the candidate instead. Every 73 seconds someone in America is sexually assaulted. Out of 1000 assaults, 995 perpetrators will walk free.
Concerned neighbours and victims of crime do not speak out because they have an agenda. And they certainly don’t make false accusations to do so either.
In 2005 a British Home Office study found that of 216 complaints of rape that were classified as being false, 39 of those named a suspect. Only six cases led to an arrest, and only two led to charges being brought before they were ultimately deemed false.
There are not thousands of innocent people's lives, and reputations, being ruined by false rape or sexual assault allegations. As we see in the study above, few suspects are even named. We know that in the UK only 4% of cases of sexual violence reported to the police are found or suspected to be false. Studies carried out in Europe and in the US say this rate is between 2% and 6%.
Those who speak up do so to shed light on the truth, even though they’ve seen the risks of doing so - especially when it’s an accusation against a powerful man. Death threats, constant public interrogation, doxxing. Those that do speak up are incredibly brave women.
Which is exactly the reason why the harassment of these women shouldn't be used to score points and tally up which political alignment is ‘worse’.
Women aren't pawns to be used against your enemy of choice.
A Labour MP that abuses their partner is just as bad a Conservative MP that does. A Republican rapist is just as bad a Democrat one.
Women do not come forward with their stories to sabotage a political party's chances of power, or a man's 'right' to a certain position in office. They do so to hold people who have done inexcusable things to them to account. They do so to get justice for the crimes committed against them.
It is hard when we have a movement we believed in, or a candidate we believed in, disappoint us. It’s hard to find you’ve aligned your want to make the world a better place with someone who has been accused of something so horrible. It makes us uncomfortable being faced with the fact we cheered someone on, unaware they had mistreated others.
But you cannot ignore these women for the sake of feeling better about yourself and your judgements. You must look yourself in the mirror and say: I had the best intentions, and a belief in what this person was trying to do, but I can no longer support them.
Believe women, no matter if it personally or politically suits you or not.
Our truth is not here to make you comfortable.
Scotland’s Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline
National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-51572665
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51853134
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100408125722/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors293.pdf
http://www.open.ac.uk/research/news/false-accusations-sexual-violence
I am tired of women being played as political pawns in some nightmarish game.
A game where you only support survivors of sexual assault when it suits your agenda or set of beliefs.
It has been an exhausting eighteen months.
A man and a woman have a huge argument in their flat. The words "Get off me'' are screamed. A neighbour calls the police. It turns out it's one of the Conservative candidates for prime minister Boris Johnson and his then girlfriend Carrie Symonds. The concerned neighbour then turns into a Labour political activist determined to ruin the career of Boris. Over half of all women who are killed in the UK die by the hands of their partners or ex partners.
A group of nine women go to the police after they all experienced various levels of sexual assault. They didn't go to the police for years as they didn't want to jeopardize their work during an important time. The man accused is Alex Salmond. They immediately turn into political activists determined to ruin Salmond's career and the case for independence in Scotland. All of these women worked for the SNP during the independence referendum. In their own words: "Our job involved protecting the first minister and his reputation."
A number of women come forward saying they've experienced sexual harassment over a number of years when working for a US senator.The accused turns out to be Joe Biden, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. One woman in particular is vocal about her accusations and is immediately framed as being a Russian agent trying to ruin Biden's chances at the presidency and ensure Trump stays in power. Anyone who believes her is said to only do so because they wanted his rival, Bernie Sanders, to be the candidate instead. Every 73 seconds someone in America is sexually assaulted. Out of 1000 assaults, 995 perpetrators will walk free.
Concerned neighbours and victims of crime do not speak out because they have an agenda. And they certainly don’t make false accusations to do so either.
In 2005 a British Home Office study found that of 216 complaints of rape that were classified as being false, 39 of those named a suspect. Only six cases led to an arrest, and only two led to charges being brought before they were ultimately deemed false.
There are not thousands of innocent people's lives, and reputations, being ruined by false rape or sexual assault allegations. As we see in the study above, few suspects are even named. We know that in the UK only 4% of cases of sexual violence reported to the police are found or suspected to be false. Studies carried out in Europe and in the US say this rate is between 2% and 6%.
Those who speak up do so to shed light on the truth, even though they’ve seen the risks of doing so - especially when it’s an accusation against a powerful man. Death threats, constant public interrogation, doxxing. Those that do speak up are incredibly brave women.
Which is exactly the reason why the harassment of these women shouldn't be used to score points and tally up which political alignment is ‘worse’.
Women aren't pawns to be used against your enemy of choice.
A Labour MP that abuses their partner is just as bad a Conservative MP that does. A Republican rapist is just as bad a Democrat one.
Women do not come forward with their stories to sabotage a political party's chances of power, or a man's 'right' to a certain position in office. They do so to hold people who have done inexcusable things to them to account. They do so to get justice for the crimes committed against them.
It is hard when we have a movement we believed in, or a candidate we believed in, disappoint us. It’s hard to find you’ve aligned your want to make the world a better place with someone who has been accused of something so horrible. It makes us uncomfortable being faced with the fact we cheered someone on, unaware they had mistreated others.
But you cannot ignore these women for the sake of feeling better about yourself and your judgements. You must look yourself in the mirror and say: I had the best intentions, and a belief in what this person was trying to do, but I can no longer support them.
Believe women, no matter if it personally or politically suits you or not.
Our truth is not here to make you comfortable.
Help and support contacts
Rape Crisis ScotlandScotland’s Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline
National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-51572665
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51853134
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100408125722/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors293.pdf
http://www.open.ac.uk/research/news/false-accusations-sexual-violence
Comments
Post a Comment